I’ve had some time to let everything we saw yesterday sink in and I’m ready to make my comments.  Read on for my humble thoughts and opinions.

Dashboard 2.0: The New Experience
On the Xbox 360′s launch day when I first turned on my console, I remember thinking very clearly to myself that the Dashboard was going to be inadequate as time moved on.  Being the professional designer that I am (you did know that, right?) I had concocted several solutions in my head that could potentially solve the problems that I foresaw.

Never in my wildest dreams did I image that they’d implement an entirely different front end interface!

I can’t say that I necessarily love it, but we really don’t know a lot about it yet.  I know that significantly more information is coming and I’m fully intent on reserving judgment until then.  Primarily, I want to know how it’s going to benefit the gamer enthusiast in me beyond 8 person partying in the dashboard.  While neat, I can’t see myself using this very often (if ever).

What we really need to see is how this system will make getting around easier.  I’ll tell you, from my limited exposure to it so far I would imagine it would make navigating your content harder.  But, like I said, we really don’t know anything about it yet and we’ll have to wait for Microsoft to reveal more in greater detail.

Avatars
Cool? I guess?  Can I dress him up in COG armour from Gears of War?  I don’t know.  This is obviously aimed at making the console more mainstream friendly and, while I’m on board with that, I hope they take the opportunity to expand the experience well beyond the horribly realized Miis.

Another important question that I’m curious to have answered is how these new Avatars will be monetized.  Obviously paying for new shirts and whatnot is the equivalent of paying for gamerpics so I guess we’ll see that.  But will they take it further.

Here’s another question.  What’s going to happen to gamercards on Xbox.com and the rest of the internet?  If gamerpics are going optional, will there be a backend system to essentially convert avatars into gamerpics.  I guess only time will tell.

NetFlix, NBC, Universal
I’m pretty sure none of these apply to Canada so I’m not really getting worked up over them.  The Canadian video marketplace is the equivelent of a bad joke (a very expensive one at that) which I’ve pretty much ignored up to this point.  What I really want to see is the price reduced and the content signifiacntly expanded.

Games
This is what it all comes down to for me.  Everything they showed was pretty much on my must-buy list.  Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Rock Band 2 and (of course) Final Fantasy XIII.  There was lots of news and lots of new features announced.  They’re all great and fantastic and I’ll be sure they’ll add to the experience.

A few of the more casual or mainstream games announced will also more than likely find their way into my living room.  Maranda and I have quite a few non-gamer friends and games like Scene It have been a hit in the past.

Game Over
Now that we’re all said and done I think it’s safe to say that Microsoft is delivering a little something for everyone.  Will the new mainstream focused dashboard deliver a better experience for the core gamer?  That’s still up in the air.  Regardless of whether it’s a hit or miss, at least we’ll have some fantastic games to play.

I’ve been reading several “who won e3” articles and I felt it would be about time for me to chime in. Maybe it’s premature since we’ve still got some time to go, but I don’t think we’re going to see anymore big surprises. I’m pretty much going to base this entire article off of the keynotes, just an FYI.

Before I begin, I want to voice my extreme frustration with G4 interrupting the presentations for commercial breaks. EXTREME. FRUSTRATION. If that wasn’t bad enough, they also wasted even more time with Tech Tips and game reviews appended to the end of the breaks. So. Not. Cool. G4, you get a one…. out of five.

Microsoft
Being heavily involved with these guys, I hold them to very high expectations. They maintain my primary gaming platform so I want them to succeed. That said, I was originally very unhappy with their entire presentation. They didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. It wasn’t until afterwards when HQ and I were talking about it that I clued into what was really going on. This holiday season is a make or break period for Sony and Microsoft. Both have been out for a while and now, this autumn, is the time when Microsoft must hammer it home that awesome, next generation gaming is here and it’s happening on XBOX 360 right-the-hell-now. There are a bazillion PS2 gamers out there getting ready for their next fix and MS wants them bad. And that, my friends, is why they focused on the here and now and not the up and coming.

That new Halo 3 LE console looks nice (I realize that I’m the only one who thinks so.  Seriously, I think it’s hawt!!). I would preorder now if it wasn’t for the fact that it only has a 20GB hdd. With the (most excellent) announcement that we’re finally getting the Video Marketplace the larger 120GB unit is nothing less than a requirement.

Speaking of… HOLY COW WE’RE GETTING VIDEO MARKETPLACE THIS YEAR! This caught both HQ and myself completely by surprise. I totally expected this to be held off for another six to eight months at least. The big question now is, “what content will we be seeing?” I can almost guarantee that not everything available is the US will make an appearance in the Great White North. Likewise, we’ll probably end up with some exclusive Canadian content too.

At the end of the show, it still ends up being a confirmation of what most of us already knew: Microsoft is doing a great job, and there are some fantastic games lined up for this holiday season. This was a keynote built to fill a very singular purpose and it did that with grace. 4/5

Hit the jump for my take on Nintendo and Sony.

In case you didn’t know, Canadian station G4TechTV will be carrying the Microsoft keynote tonight at 11:00PM ET. Their lineup of coverage is actually fairly impressive, and while I’ll be at work during almost all of their coverage, you can bet that I’ve already set my PVR to record the whole thing! Here’s a look at what else they’ve got going on for E3:

Programming highlights:
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
§ Live E3 preview show – 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. ET/PT
§ Live Microsoft spotlight – 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. ET/PT

Wednesday, July 11, 2007
§ Live Sony and Nintendo spotlight– 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET/PT
§ Live E3 day one coverage – 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. ET/PT

Thursday, July 12, 2007
§ Live E3 day two coverage – 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. ET/PT

Friday, July 13, 2007
§ Live E3 day three coverage – 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET/PT

So what games are you looking forward to hearing about most? For me it probably goes something a little like this: Mass Effect, Halo 3, PGR4, Mercs 2 and mmmmm…. Rock Band.